The Green Bay Packers are arguably the least convincing 2-2 team of 2026.
Their run to .500 has included a blown double-digit lead against Minnesota Vikings backup Carson Wentz and a 35-14 Thursday Night Football stomping at the hands of a then-winless Atlanta Falcons team. The wins came against the toothless New York Jets (in overtime!) and whilst fending off the 0-4 Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who were quarterbacked by undrafted rookie Jalon Daniels.
That alone wouldn't be enough to make a head coach who was 76-40-1 in the regular season in his Packers career worried about his job security. Doing it after a six-game losing streak -- including two come-from-ahead losses to the arch rival Chicago Bears -- has turned the chatter regarding Matt LaFleur's
future in Green Bay from "whispers" to "murmurs."
What has gone wrong for the Packers in 2026?
Part of Green Bay's struggles can be tied to the injuries that have made the offensive line depth chart an all-star cast of "remember some guys." Micah Parsons is still working his way back from the torn ACL that ended his 2025. A receiving corps already marked by attrition has lost both Jayden Reed and Savion Williams to the injured list.
That has flipped the 2026 switch to "hard mode" for a head coach who needed recovery time to get his bearings straight. Instead, LaFleur has allowed overmatched opponents to stick around and showed the flaws that sunk his 2025 (and previous postseason efforts) remain a blazing sigil of his biggest weakness.
Josh Jacobs was declining even before a domestic violence arrest placed him on the commissioner's exempt list. Now LaFleur's run game, led by MarShawn Lloyd and Kaleb Johnson, is the league's worst. Jeff Hafley's departure to become head coach of the Miami Dolphins has led to a decline in the defense.
But the most troubling aspect is LaFleur's inability to adjust his gameplan and close teams out. Here's what I wrote about Jordan Love from the five-game losing streak that ended his 2025 to the 2-2 record that inspired very little confidence in 2026.
Green Bay's offense of wide open looks creates early leads, but as defenses make adjustments, that edge crumbles. From Week 15 to the club's Wild Card defeat -- five losses -- Love had a 0.604 expected points added (EPA) per dropback in the first half, comfortably ahead of second-place Drake Maye (0.481). After halftime, that fell to -0.135 EPA/dropback, better than only:
That's awful company to keep. He's been worse to start games in 2026, where his 0.132 EPA/dropback in the first half ranks 14th among starters. That drops to -0.039 EPA/dropback after halftime, which ranks 24th.
The Packers aren't going to win games with a quarterback who's just barely outside the bottom quartile of starters trying to close things out. Defenses are figuring out how to slow LaFleur's offenses, LaFleur is slow to react, which puts Love in a position where he's trying to force throws.
In the past, this inability to close out games was mostly a problem in the postseason. Over the last year-plus, it's cropped up more and more in the regular season, leading to embarrassing losses from an underachieving team.
Will LaFleur be fired with a sub-.500 record?
The worse the Packers do, the worse their return on the Micah Parsons trade gets -- the Dallas Cowboys own their first round pick. That's going to create some loud opinions in Wisconsin. But he'll be extended some grace thanks to the injuries and departures that made this Green Bay roster (and coaching staff) much less talented than the ones that preceded it. 2026, barring absolute disaster, should be LaFleur's mulligan year. It will put him firmly on the hot seat in 2027, however.
Seat temperature: Lukewarm, but about to get much, much hotter with a loss to the Bears and backup quarterback Tyson Bagent.
This article originally appeared on For The Win: Would the Packers fire Matt LaFleur if his 2026 struggles persist?
